Gaming Performance

As you know, it is the graphics subsystem that determines the performance of the entire platform equipped with pretty high-speed processors in the majority of contemporary games. Therefore, we do our best to make sure that the graphics card is not loaded too heavily during the test session: we select the most CPU-dependent tests and all tests are performed without antialiasing and in far not the highest screen resolutions. In other words, obtained results allow us to analyze not that much the fps rate that can be achieved in systems equipped with contemporary graphics accelerators, but rather how well contemporary processors can cope with gaming workload. Therefore, the results help us determine how the tested CPUs will behave in the nearest future, when new graphics card generations will be widely available.

No doubt that Sandy Bridge are excellent CPUs for games. It is in fact quite logical, as the developers paid special attention to making them more efficient when working with the data stores in cache and memory, which is important for games. Therefore, Core i5-2500, Core i5-2400 and Core i5-2300 get a real benefit performance, exceeding the previous generation Core i5 by up to 75%.

Some gamers may object by saying that LGAA1155 is not the best gaming platform, because the CPUs designed in this form-factor offer only 16 PCI Express lanes and therefore do not support full-speed multi-GPU configurations. However, I would like to remind everyone that this problem may be successfully resolved by installing an additional Nvidia NF200 switch chip onto the mainboard. I am sure that all mainboard makers will have LGA1155 products like that in their line-ups.